


Part 1: 7 Stages

by oliveordie



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wrestling, F/M, Heterosexual Sex, POV Second Person, Seven Stages of Grief, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:17:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oliveordie/pseuds/oliveordie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no hesitation in that first kiss. His mouth is eager and so is yours. You let him set the pace. One of his hands is gripping your shirt at the small of your back. His other hand tangles itself in your thick hair. You are holding onto him too, clinging onto his AC/DC t-shirt like it is your saving grace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Part 1: 7 Stages

**Author's Note:**

> Lots of liberties taken. Not a photographer, I just play one on TV. I haven’t written anything serious in roughly a year so I’m sorry if I awkwardly bumble through things. No death in fic, despite the implication of title.

1\. Shock and Denial.

The battered camera bag that had held your precious Nikon lay like a discarded piece of rubbish on the ground. The top of the black canvas bag was open and your camera was a mere foot away. It was on its side, leather neck strap trailing behind it. One of the lenses had rolled some distance after being expelled from the bag. You were standing at the perfect angle to see the cap had popped off. An ugly crack spanned the glass. The other lens was next to the camera, cap down on the cement floor of the parking garage to the stadium.

No one was saying anything. You didn’t look at John. You didn’t look at Stephen. You didn’t even look at the passersby that wandered past the scene. Everything else was frozen in time and space. Except your heart, that was beating so hard it hurt. 

2\. Pain and Guilt.

You’re at the camera bar in the local Walmart. You had managed to talk Ron into filling in for you at the house show as the ring side photographer. You tried to explain what had happened to him, but all you could manage was “my Nikon is gone” before the tears started making wet trails down your face. John and Stephen had followed you through the arena while you searched for Ron, mumbling quick apologies and providing offers to pay for the repairs. 

But you didn't have two to three weeks to wait around for the repair shops to work their magic over the broken body of your camera. You needed a camera and you needed one fast. You managed to ditch them by ducking into a stairwell leading down to a lower level of the parking structure.

You’re chiding yourself. It was stupid of you to leave the camera bag on the roof of your Subaru Forrester while you rummaged through the luggage in your backseat. It was even stupider to park next to the tour buses. Anything can happen on the road and everything can happen when you put a bunch of amped-up, road-weary Superstars in park. When one adds a football to the mix, it’s a recipe for disaster.

You’re waiting for the Walmart associate to finish ringing up the old women clutching their prints at the counter. Your eyes scan over the models on display and the price tags underneath. A wave of nausea almost knocks you off your feet when your eye settles on the Nikon D3200’s Rollback sign. 

Everything hurts. You can’t name the places where the pain is coming from. All you’ve got is the memory of graduation day and the proud look on your father’s face, acknowledging your survival of art school. His hands are holding a box out to you. It is covered in sky blue, glittery wrapping paper. A wide, velvet ribbon is tied around the package. The redness of the ribbon stick out in your memory. You had kept that ribbon in your keepsake chest at your parents’ house.

The box held the Nikon D5200. But there was more in the box than the camera. There were hopes and dreams and most of all, there was love. 

And a football killed it all. Fuck.

3\. Anger and Bargaining. 

That Walmart associate didn’t deserve the tongue lashing you gave them. But you were eager to reach out and hurt someone. You first let him have it for keeping you for so long. You then tore into him when he said “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re out of stock on the D3200s.”

“Then give me the display,” you say in a low voice. You’ve started to tremble. Your hands are balled in the front pocket of your navy hoodie. The associate must have sensed he was about to thread water with sharks. “I can’t sell the displays unless…”

“That ‘unless’ is happening right now,” you snap at him. “If selling me that camera is something you cannot do, then get me a manager who can!”

4\. Depression. Reflection. Loneliness.

You’re trying not to count the dollars lost from the death of your camera, the purchase of your new digital SLR, and the cost of the first Jack and Coke in front of you. Nevermind the nice hotel room you booked just an hour before hitting the bar. Time ticks on and you lose your concept of it as you slowly drink. One drink turns into two, two into three. 

Everything feels hopeless. A job that you thought would take you places is only taking you from town to town and from city to city on road to road. You’re doing a great job of padding your portfolio with ringside action shots of larger than life men and women doing larger than life feats of athletic prowess, but in the end all you have is a rising odometer, a cold bed, and an overpowering feeling of loneliness. And now you have despair. 

Maybe this isn’t right for you. 

You’re trying to figure a way out of the year-long contract you signed with WWE when a burst of laughter sounds from the bar doorway, interrupting your working plan to get hit by a car to escape your contractual obligations. A group of Superstars come in, not all together but in a slow stream of steadily moving bodies. They are all in small groups of two or three. Their apparent merry moods make you look away in annoyance. You stare down into the lowball glass in front of you. The ice is sitting in the remnants of watered-down cola and whiskey. When the wrestlers clear the entrance way, you’ll walk out of the bar and travel the two blocks back to your hotel where you will probably turn on the History channel and cry yourself to sleep.

You look up to the door just as Stephen walks in. He sees you immediately. You want to look away but the expression on his face - sorrow, remorse, guilt - keeps your gaze. As he crosses the room to you, you register another emotion coming from him - compassion. 

You rip your eyes away from him and focus back on your glass, which has become a blurred mass from the tears in your eyes.

He stands next to you. “May I join you?” he asks almost gently. The sound of his accented voice makes your heart skip a beat. Why did it do that?

You shrug, trying to seem indifferent to the question. “Sure,” you say. You want to be witty and say more, like how this is a free country and he may do whatever he damn pleases, like throw footballs in parking garages full of cars, but you were afraid of your voice cracking and the tide of emotions that would roll in after the words.  
And part of you really didn’t want to push Stephen away.

“Listen, I just need to say-” he starts, but you can’t let him finish.

“Let’s just sit here and forget that…” you say but you can’t articulate the rest of what you need to say. A tear slides down your cheek and you make a single, unattractive sobbing noise that would be embarrassing if you wen’t in so much pain.

The noise in the bar was a welcoming contrast to the void forming in your chest. “Can I buy you another drink?” Stephen asks you.

You manage to nod. Stephen waves down the bartender. You are served another Jack and Coke. He asks for a Guinness for himself, the way he phrases his order stands out to you. 

“What is a ‘perfect pint’ of Guinness?” you ask him, after the bartender places the branded glass in front of him. “Is that some kind of Irish code for ‘best glass of Guinness you’ve got?’”

He chuckles. “When you pour a pint to make it the perfect pint it should take 119.53 seconds. See the head?” He points to the fluffy cloud of foam forming at the top of the beer. “That’s a distinctive trait of nitrogen-infused beers.”

“That’s… that’s so fascinating, please tell me more,” you say, trying to sound as uninterested as you could sound given the fact that the more Stephen spoke the more you wanted him to speak. You didn’t like the desperate feeling that was forming inside of you. Or that shiver that went up your spine at the sound of his voice. 

He didn’t seem perturbed by the briskness of your dismissal. He drank deep from his pint glass. You sip your beverage. The noise in the bar had increased as more patron filled the room. You start feeling a little claustrophobic. 

Stephen has finished his Guinness. If anything, you are polite, even in your time of mourning. “How was the show?” you say.

He runs his hand through his hair. “Ah, well. Let’s just say I’ll be feeling the chair shot I took for a few days.” 

You’re not sure why you say what you say next. It just comes out of you. “Would you like to feel something else for a few hours?” 

Stephen had been swirling the foam in glass when you had said it, and he stops toying with his glass at your words. He clears his throat. 

You’re buzzed but you’re not drunk. Even in your slight inebriation you can read the signs he’s giving you loud and clear. “Alright then. This has been a fun day. I’m going now. Thanks for the drink.” You try your best to keep your tone neutral and you try even harder to fight against that fuzzy feeling in your head that comes from standing up after you’ve been drinking. 

You exit the bar without so much as a glance back over your shoulder.

5\. The Upward Turn.

It’s cold outside. The streets are well-lit and the walk back to the hotel is uneventful. Thank God. As you slowly make your way along the tidy sidewalks you mentally recite your ABCs backwards, hoping you can write-off that inelegant come-on crime you had just committed as a side-effect of not being in full command of your mental faculties You stumble over P-O-N-M. The rest of the letters flow lyrically. 

There goes that theory. 

You’re on autopilot now. The clerk behind the front desk in the hotel lobby glances at you as you walk to the elevator. He says nothing, though. All you can think of is how nice the bed is going to feel. 

“Hey,” a voice calls to you from across the lobby. It’s an Irish voice.

You feel yourself jump. Stephen is at your side and he notices your start. You see the dark hoodie he’s holding. It’s yours. You left it at the bar. 

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. “I just wanted-“

“To bring me my hoodie, thanks,” you say, reaching for the piece of clothing dangling from his large hand.

He doesn’t allow you to take it. In fact, he moves his hand just out of your reach. “You like to interrupt people, don’t you?” He didn’t sound as annoyed as you were starting to feel. You don’t owe him an answer about your personality so you say nothing. “What’s your floor?”

“My floor?”

“I assume you standing at the elevator doors means you plan on utilizing said elevator,” Stephen says. 

You try not get hopeful over the scene that is unfolding. Instead you give him your floor number. He pushes the door open button and the elevator chimes before the metal doors creak open. You both board. 

When the doors close, he speaks again. “I would like to,” he says.

And you know exactly what he means. 

6\. Working Through. 

Your room is lit by the small lamp next to the bed. You had turned it on before you left. The yellow glow makes the sterile room seem inviting. You had dropped your suitcase unceremoniously by the standard hotel writing desk. The gray shopping bag with the new Nikon is on the table in the corner. 

But Stephen isn’t there to provide commentary on the scenery.

He drapes your hoodie over the back of the desk chair. You are close enough for him to reach out to you. His hand closes on your bare wrist and he pulls you to him.  
There is no hesitation in that first kiss. His mouth is eager and so is yours. You let him set the pace. One of his hands is gripping your shirt at the small of your back. His other hand tangles itself in your thick hair. You are holding onto him too, clinging onto his AC/DC t-shirt like it is your saving grace.

Stephen breaks the kiss to move his mouth to your neck. The brush of his facial hair against your skin tickles, but you don’t laugh. He nips and kisses. That whiskey cloud your head was floating in evaporates as the raw need to be taken heats your loins.

His hands brush down your front, over your breasts and to the hem of your shirt. He slowly pulls your clothing up, his hands lightly skimming your sides as he tugs it over your head. You shiver.

You make a move to relieve him of his clothing, but he stops this by pushing you down onto the bed. You’re kissing again but it’s different this time. He’s rushed and hungry. His hands make work of your body, caressing and touching you. For a man who’s purpose is violence, his touch is kind. 

You manage to struggle against his intentions just enough to free his massive body of his light coat and shirt. You try at the belt he’s wearing but he swats your hand away. Stephen pushes you back again. 

At Stephen’s wordless insistence you’re now naked save for a pair of black Hane’s briefs. He presses his groin against you. You can feel his erection through his denim and your underwear. He grinds against you. A moan escapes your lips. You’re on fire and you need him to put you out. 

You’re ready and you both know it. But he’s not diving in, not yet. Wisely, he isn’t pressing against you anymore. His mouth is busy at your breast and his hand is fondling you. He seemingly takes delight in your desperate squirming. When his hand sweeps over your underwear, your hips buck to meet his touch. You moan as he works his hand over the thin cotton, pressing and rubbing the fabric into your wetness. He uses his tongue and teeth, alternating between breasts, to further the delicious torment he’s inflicting on you between your legs. You feel him push your wet underwear to the side. Stephen eases a finger into you. And then another. A slow deliberate pace is kept as he pleases you. 

But you don’t want the foreplay. 

“Stephen,” you say, meaning it to sound like a warning. But it comes out as a sigh. 

The Irishman acquiesces He gets up from his position between your legs and slowly undresses. First, he unbuckles his belt. His shoes come off. Then, with great purpose, he slips off his jeans. Finally, his boxer briefs… 

He’s watching you as you watch him. You have to remind yourself to breathe when he’s standing there before you, wearing nothing but a hungry look in his eyes.  
You’ve propped yourself up on your elbows. Stephen bends down to his discarded clothes and pulls a shiny wrapper out of a pocket. You’re getting anxious now. Again, you move to get up and again Stephen uses his strength against you and pushes you back down. 

He does what he has to and stands at the bed. He wraps his hands around your waist and smoothly pulls you to him. When you’re at the edge with your legs dangling, he angles your hips before swiftly plunging in. 

You register his low moan and respond with your own cry of pleasure. He buries himself in you and stops. You’re breathing heavy. Stephen leans down, closing the distance between your bodies. He kisses you deeply, all take and all tongue. Your hands travel his back. A film of sweat covers his muscular body. He pulls back and rocks into you again. You break the kiss to breathe his name. 

It takes all of your self control to stop from raising your hips out of the rhythm he has set. You let him control your body, stoking the fire inside you with every ebb and flow of his movements. His nails dig into your thighs and he picks up speed. The thrusts are harder, more urgent. You lock your legs around him and start meeting his body with force. Your cries only serve to fuel his desire. You both inspire a frenzy in each other whose only cure is coming closer the more you couple. 

He lets go of your thighs and pins you down, still plunging. His hands find your hair and his teeth find your shoulder. His breath is ragged on your skin. He’s getting closer and you are too. He comes first, groaning into you. On his final hard stroke you climax, every inch of you quivering. 

You lay underneath Stephen for a moment. The wave of pleasure passes and your shivering stops. He slowly pulls out of you. You respond with a complaining cry. 

He leaves you, heading to the bathroom. You don’t watch him go. Instead you focus on remembering how he felt and try to ignore the dull ache between your legs. 

You’re probably not going to walk with much grace tomorrow. But then again, you’ve never been a creature of poise. You close your eyes and will your heart to beat at a normal speed. Relaxation kicks in. Your limbs feel heavy. You’re cold again.

The toilet flushes and the sink runs. You hear the click of the bathroom light. The bed dips as Stephen climbs back on. 

“You’re not going to sleep right there, are you?” he asks. His voice sounds calm. 

You yawn and stretch like a lazy cat. You open your eyes to stare sleepily into his. “I suppose I should get under the covers,” you say.  
“Aye, that you should,” he says. He brushes a strand of hair away from your cheek. 

It takes some slow positioning, but you both wind up under the hotel sheets and bland coverlet. Stephen spoons up behind you, burying his face in your hair. 

“The camera was $1300,” you can’t stop yourself from muttering as you start sinking into sleep.

“And the replacement?”

“$800. Ish.”

He drapes a pale arm over your side.

“It’ll be taken care of,” he replies.

7\. Acceptance.

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd for content, not for typos, grammar, or spelling errors. Any of those are mine and mine alone.
> 
> It is generally understood that there are five stages of grief, but I found this model via google and it worked best for my purposes.
> 
> Original posting here - <http://anonno1.tumblr.com/post/45178834215/7-stages>


End file.
